1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of ecommerce and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for determining a quorum based on presence and authorizing one or more quorum members to process an event.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In the art of transacting there are often scenarios where access to certain content such as a document, a directory, or a task or process may be granted only if approved by a quorum of authorized persons. One representative use case might be a task given to a team of highly skilled specialists or persons with high confidentiality clearance where during any phase of task processing there has to be at least a minimum number of team members (quorum) directly involved. In another case, a highly protected document might exist that can be opened only if approved by a quorum out of a group of assigned persons.
There are specialized solutions such as Microsoft™ Quorum Authorization for Expenditure, Quorum Joint Interest Billing, Quorum Fixed Assets, and Quorum Contract Management. These solutions are based on voting approval without requiring actual presence in time of quorum members.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a system and methods for enabling authorization of a quorum to process an event based on presence combined with geo-location or virtual presence attributes.